Leaks to the media have plagued Trump’s presidency since his first day in office, and a new report on leakers’ motives opens a window into the extent of the subterfuge. “To be honest, it probably falls into a couple of categories,” one White House official told Axios‘s Jonathan Swan. “The first is personal vendettas. And two is to make sure there’s an accurate record of what’s really going on in the White House.” Many of those with ties and puppet strings connecting them to the deep state are actually in Trump’s White House, according to The Washington Post.

A former White House official who, according to Swan, “turned leaking into an art form,” said that “leaking is information warfare; it’s strategic and tactical — strategic to drive [the] narrative, tactical to settle scores.”